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Bearded Theory 2019

Apologies for the delay in writing to you all and thanking you for attending this year’s festival.

It was a great year with some legendary performances across all 9 stages and a great success for the first outing for the brilliant Showcase Stage hosting some amazing new talent on the festival scene for the first time. We are back at Catton Park on May 23rd to 26th 2019.

We let you down with our traffic management issues on the Thursday which upset us tremendously, we put the festival on to create joy not havoc (partly) and we have spent a good period reviewing this year’s feedback from you and delayed our communication in order to address and respond thoroughly.

We have made some amendments off our own back to ensure the traffic situation at Catton Hall is addressed to the best of our ability. We have never been a festival that hides behinds our mistakes, deletes negative criticism on our social platforms or waits for a local authority to tell us how to improve, we have done and continue to do things off our own back following your feedback to us.

The main items are that we have decided to reduce the festivals overall capacity by 1,500, gates will open on Thursday at 9am and will remain open until 9pm, we will have no music on the larger stages on Thursday but the arena areas and bars will be open later in the afternoon, all campervan and caravan spaces will be marked out in advance and the exact pitch sizes (7.5 x 7.5 meters) will be detailed at the time of booking please note if your vehicle is larger we will accommodate you on the day at no extra cost, despite rumours to the contrary we will be parking caravans and campervans next to each other. We have made a reduction in campervan and caravan capacity until we get a handle on it, no waiting will be enforced on all roads leading off the A38 and will be enforced by the Police who have been appointed by the festival, for those wishing to travel in convoy please make arrangements to meet up before you leave the A38, the Police will fine vehicles waiting in the no waiting areas and vehicles doing this will be refused admittance to the festival, if you have broken down we will provide a free tow truck to remove you off the highway during peak periods and we have a motorbike patrol employed to patrol all routes to identify vehicles that have conked out, we have appointed the UK`s biggest and most respected parking and traffic management company (CTM) and everyone arriving by campervan and caravan will have tickets accredited after they have been parked up.

In response to other feedback, we are overhauling the on-site signage, so people know where everything is especially new camping fields which were not used, we will be erecting shield fencing in certain areas which were targeted by tent thieves (who by the way we caught and detained this year) and reverting to both vehicle and dog patrols at night time. We will be operating a full 100% no disposable cups in all our bars in 2019, we will be selling metal enviro cups at cost price and a sturdy plastic stackable pint pot instead or you are welcome to bring your own. Full glass washing facilities will be made available or tankards replaced for clean upon request. We will be upgrading the Pallet sound system to the very best available, we have moved the pirate ship and dance tent to mitigate noise bleed and the draft site plan is below. We have a new area incorporating a theatre, spoken word & protest tent and a circus which is being worked on currently. The rest is back as before.

[Click on the above map to enlarge it]

Tickets will go on sale on September 15th. Ticket details to be confirmed on the next newsletter on or around September 1st 2018.

Please let us know who you would like to appear in 2019 on the forum and other social media platforms that we know how to use. The forum is down at the moment and the new website incorporating the forum will go live on September 1st along with the 2018 highlights video (which doesn’t have any traffic in it funnily enough).

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Very interesting. Has any other festival ever reduced its capacity to improve it for the punters?

As stated above, the honesty is impressive again. Good news on moving Magical Sounds, bad news that the Tea Pot thing is back in the same spot but at least there is prior warning so I'll just camp further away to escape the bongos.

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Very interesting. Has any other festival ever reduced its capacity to improve it for the punters?

As stated above, the honesty is impressive again. Good news on moving Magical Sounds, bad news that the Tea Pot thing is back in the same spot but at least there is prior warning so I'll just camp further away to escape the bongos.

In a separate post they have said The Bongo's will stop at 10pm in the tea pot taking on board the complaints from this year .

Bearded Theory returns May 23rd until 26th 2019 at our iconic home at Catton Park nestled in the beautiful National Forest. 2019 tickets go on sale September 15th, 2018 at 9am. We look forward to welcoming some of you back into the fields next year.

The website has had a face lift and it can be viewed by going to www.beardedtheory.com and should be much easier to use if you are on a mobile or an electric pad thing.

A monthly instalment payment plan is available on Early Bird and Adult Standard tickets whereby you pay £30 up front and the remaining balance is taken out monthly on the 30th of each month from January until April 2019.

Important note, especially if you are attempting to purchase an early bird ticket: you need to purchase your payment plan tickets separate to full price tickets at the time of purchase.

Age 12-15 tickets are also eligible for a payment plan with a £20 deposit and the remaining balance is taken out monthly from January until April 2019.

Payment Plan – Tickets purchased on or after January 1st 2019

You can purchase Adult Standard and Age 12-15 tickets on pay half now and the balance being paid at any point up until April 30th, 2019. Any tickets not settled will be resold in May 2019.

Tipi & Yurt and Coach Travel tickets will be made available after September 15th to avoid quick check out on early bird sales as per feedback from last year.

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Fair play to the organisers...clearly very keen on sorting out the issues from this year. TBH I think having the car park open at 9am will resolve the majority of the access issues (which incidentally we didn't experience at all...we breezed straight in), don't think the capacity needed reducing, it certainly didn't feel crowded at any point (and don't think I queued for a beer once). Things like thefts they can't really do much about

We had an absolutely brilliant weekend and will definitely be booking again on Saturday morning.

In a separate post they have said The Bongo's will stop at 10pm in the tea pot taking on board the complaints from this year .

Surely the bongos will just go elsewhere . as quite a few of the tea pot tent will have been on stimulants , they ain’t going to want to keep it down and just whisper till 8 am . Just stick the tea tent away from camping .